


'Debilitating'

by Ruenis



Series: InaWeek 2017 [1]
Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, InaWeek: Soldier, Mental Illness, Post-Canon, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 03:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9638546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruenis/pseuds/Ruenis
Summary: Because one day, the war will finally come to an end, won't it?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 5 of [InaWeek](https://inaweek2017.tumblr.com) and today's theme is: The Soldier!

“You are my enemy.”

Gazing at himself in the mirror, Inaho cannot help but frown somewhat at the reflection that greets him, and though he _knows_ he had said the phrase himself, his reflection simply gazes at him immobile and silent, their lips unmoving.

He raises his hand a bit, mechanically, and begins to remove the medical patch that he sleeps with at night, the white bandages and gauze a bit sticky with the medicine he occasionally uses to reduce the nerves in that area – Yuki had suggested that a paste or creme might be more beneficial and far less taxing on his stomach, since he does not have to ingest it. Medication, apparently, if used extensively and rather often, can end up burning a hole through the stomach and cause an array of medical issues, issues that Inaho has no interest in dealing with on top of his own. He keeps his eye shut as he removes the patch, and remains as silent as his reflection, gazing at the used patch for a few moments before he throws it away in the garbage; he has many, many more, and until the nerves around his eye calm down, he suspects he will always have a drawer full of them in his bedroom, somewhere. Bending down to wash his face with soap and water, he tenses up again upon hearing the vaguely familiar sound of their sliding door, the sound scratching, screeching, harsh on his ears, and his fingertips lightly dig into the sink's edge – _it doesn't matter, ignore it, ignore it, it doesn't matter, don't think about it._ He remains still for a few moments, breathing out softly, inhaling shakily, and straightens himself again, gazing at his silent, immobile reflection in the mirror.

“You are my enemy,” he repeats, and his voice is low, stoic still as he addresses his own reflection, “You are my enemy, and I will defeat you.”

 

“Oh, Nao, you're up earlier than usual,” Yuki breathes, and she sounds surprised, _looks_ surprised, when Inaho raises his head to glance up at her.

Yuki is currently holding a basket full of vegetables from their garden – the psychologist said that finding something mentally stimulating to do might help, so long as it was calming and not heavily taxing on the mind. Inaho had chosen gardening after attempting knitting, sewing, flower arranging, crafting small art pieces, painting, and a part-time job as a waiter for the Amifumis. All of those hobbies ended in failure, ranging from 'complete' to 'utter', and Inaho realised soon afterward that he simply does not have the talent nor patience to learn anything remotely artistic, especially with only one good eye, nor does he have the willpower anymore to deal with potentially annoying customers that may show up at the Amifumi's restaurant. His mind simply cannot handle what may come, and it seems that little things seem to set off his migraines, now.

Gardening, it seems, is both good for their own health, as well as mentally stimulating and physically engaging. It is the perfect hobby for Inaho to distract himself with when he is not busy elsewhere.

So that was what Yuki had been doing, why the sliding door had opened; Inaho makes a mental note to go out and buy something to make sure their door no longer makes that sound, perhaps a few tools or simply some oil..

“Yuki-nee,” Inaho says softly, and he gestures toward her, “I thought you got rid of all the clothes you didn't wear anymore?” He asks, because once he had been awarded his compensation for his part in the war, they had moved somewhere quieter and had donated everything that they no longer needed, including their old house, and Yuki herself had parted with quite a few of her own belongings.

“I did,” Yuki says, nodding, and she shifts the basket in her arms a bit, resting it against her hip, instead. Inaho realises she is covered in dirt and grass and pollen, and her pants are damp with morning dew; she had definitely been outside, that much is obvious. “But I kept just one pair, so I could garden with you,” she says, smiling a bit. She looks.. sad, almost, sad and a bit pained, but Inaho has come to realise that she is just worried about him. “And I know you like to start breakfast out well, so I got some vegetables from our garden so I could cook you a nice meal..”

_Ah._

“.. thank you, Yuki-nee,” Inaho murmurs, taking a few steps toward her, “I'll wash the vegetables and cut them up, and you can cook us breakfast.”

“Sure, Nao,” Yuki immediately agrees, nodding eagerly, “For the omelette, would you like bacon or ham?”

 

 

_'Debilitating'._

That was the word they had tried to use to describe Inaho's condition, physical as well as mental. The war had taken slightly more from him than it had his comrades and friends, something less than death, but 'debilitating' all the same. It had robbed him of his debatedly healthy state of mind – something many argue was never quite healthy in the first place, given how standoffish he comes across, given how cold and harsh he had seemed during the war – and had robbed him of an eye, of half of his sight.

Post-traumatic stress disorder. Nightmares, as a result of the disorder. Slight paranoia. Those new symptoms had cropped up after the war, piling onto the ones he had already had: difficulty socializing, difficulty maintaining and forming relationships, difficulty in keeping himself occupied when there is seemingly naught to do..

Inaho remains silent as he weeds the garden in their backyard, pulling up the green stalks forcefully, the dandelions, the rogue grass, the little purple flowers that have somehow started to invade their slightly elevated garden space; he tosses all of them into the basket at his side, and will later put them in a compost pile so that he can make fertilizer once everything inside has properly decomposed.

He had chosen relatively simple things to start off with, no fruit trees, no vines, mostly vegetables and berry bushes that would be easy to maintain and take care of until they bore food.

Currently growing in his garden are strawberries, lettuce and peas, and in another, separate plot, is mushrooms. They are heavily shaded, and the soil composition is darker, richer to promote growth. If he is not careful, Yuki will occasionally nick a couple of strawberries from the garden before they are truly ripe, leading to him trying to be the one to care for their small garden plot.

 _Debilitating,_ Inaho thinks again, and the word feels _wrong_ , inaccurate to describe his current condition, _'To make weak and infirm'. But I.._

“Nao?”

Inaho lifts his head upon hearing the familiar call, and finds that he is currently gripping a few weeds a bit _too_ tightly; they bend in his grasp, leaking water on his fingers, his palms, and he drops them to the ground, remaining silent.

“Are.. you alright?” Yuki asks quietly, remaining still on the porch, loosely gripping the sliding door's wooden handle. She has that worried look on her features, eyebrows furrowed, dark eyes glossed over with mild tears. “Did I wake you up this morning?”

 _With the sound, she means,_ Inaho realises, shaking his head a few times. “I was already awake,” he says honestly, and then he drops his gaze, lightly frowning at the crumpled up weeds, bright green and vivid and _ruined_ against the dark soil, “You did startle me.” He picks the weeds back up and carefully places them in his small basket, hands shaking a bit; what had upset him, this time?

“.. I'm sorry, N–..”

“It's fine,” Inaho insists, cutting her off. Lifting his head again, he catches his sister's gaze this time, and he forces a smile, for her sake. “I'm fine,” he repeats, and he raises a gloved hand to wipe the sweat from his cheek, breathing out softly, pausing. “.. Yuki-nee, can you please get me juice?”

“.. sure, Nao,” Yuki says, and she forces a grin, too, a small, pained grin.

Inaho is silent as she disappears back inside.

* * *

 

Gazing at his hand, shaking before him, Inaho is temporarily unable to discern whether or not the crimson red oozing from his palm is supposed to be there. There is a slice in his palm, right across it, and the crimson that seeps from the wound drips onto the sink's counter, staining the white, white marble. The red colour is unsettling, painful to look at, almost, and he has to avert his gaze elsewhere.

_You're bleeding._

The thought comes late, the realisation late, and he immediately lifts his head to gaze at his reflection in the mirror –

Or, rather, he _would_ , if the mirror before him were not shattered to pieces, distorting his reflection. A few shards are missing, sprinkling the sink and the floor, and a few lie dangerously close to his bare feet.

“.. ao..? Nao..? Nao?”

Inaho's gaze flickers toward the door, and he realises that the knob is rattling.

 _Yuki_ , his mind offers, and he presses his palm against the towel at his waist; the fabric irritates the slice in his palm, though he decides to ignore it temporarily.

“Nao, are you okay? Are you alright?”

“.. I broke the mirror, again,” he says after a few moments of silence.

“.. what.. happened, Nao?”

“It was.. _staring_ at me..” Inaho says, and even as he says it, he knows it is unreasonable, the reason is ridiculous, but he knows that his paranoia is to blame, his lack of self-control and his mind is to blame. “I'm.. I'm sorry, Yuki-nee,” he apologises, and his voice is low, low and careful and quiet and _shaky_ , “I'll.. get us another one..”

Yuki goes quiet outside the door, and Inaho hears her shift, her footsteps quiet and muffled against the wooden floor in their hallway. “.. it's.. it's fine, Nao,” she finally says, and her own voice is shaking, trembling, uneven, “Let's.. just get your wound sanitised. We can look for another mirror tomorrow.”

* * *

 

“Bad day?”

“.. bad day, yes.”

Footsteps. Muffled footsteps against the wooden floorboards, slow and cautious footsteps followed by careful, quiet voices.

“How is he?”

“The medication makes him extremely drowsy. He's dozing on the sofa.”

“What happened, yesterday?”

“He.. broke the bathroom mirror, again. He said it was staring at him.”

Silence. Heavy, heavy silence hangs in the air, and Inaho can barely comprehend what his sister and friends are talking about; his medication does indeed make him drowsy, and he finds it exhausting to think, to move, and he can do little more than rest and lie down when he takes it. He had tried, once, to go out to town, and had almost crashed their car.

The doctor told them afterward that he is not allowed to operate anything – _at all_ – whenever he takes the medication.

“Are his.. reflections really that upsetting, to him? Even after.. seeing that doctor, and the medication..”

“It doesn't help that he refuses to stay home and rest. He's out at least three times a week. Where does he even go?”

_Ah, no._

At that, Inaho groans softly, trying to sit up, _Don't talk about that.. –_

“Oh, he's awake,” a soft voice calls, and he hears footsteps again, low, heavy footsteps against the floor.

Inaho's vision is blurry before him, blurry with sleep and drowsiness and exhaustion, and he barely registers the hand combing his hair. “Who..?”

“We all came to see how you were doing,” a voice murmurs, and Inaho recognises it as Inko's, Inko's low voice stained with worry, “Yuki told us what happened.”

_The mirror._

“We brought some soup for you to eat, when you're finished resting,” another voice chips in, and it sounds like Nina's, maybe. _It_ **has** _to be Nina's,_ his mind tells him again, _Who else would it be?_

“And we brought a bunch of movies, to watch when you're sleeping,” yet another voice says, and theirs is a bit louder, more cheerful, “Kid stuff, movies from America. So they're in English, but they have subtitles..”

_Calm, that's Calm._

“Mmn,” Inaho murmurs, and he manages a weak nod.

There is a hand still in his hair, combing it clumsily, and he feels that hand on his shoulder after a few moments, pushing him back down gently, exceedingly gently, so that he is lying down once again.

_Tired. Sleepy. Go back to sleep. Go to sleep. Rest. Close your eyes._

Inaho does, allowing his eyes to slip shut and the voices fade away.

* * *

 

Sometimes, it is harder to differentiate between certain sounds.

An airplane whizzing by and missiles.

Fireworks and gunshots.

.. metal construction work and kataphrakt battles.

Car alarms and sirens.

Sometimes, on days that are worse than usual, it is harder to differentiate between sounds.

“Feeling better, Nao?”

Inaho lifts his head a bit, just barely able to hear his sister's voice over the thunderstorm humming in his ears. “A little,” he says, and he cannot even hear his own voice; it must have come out a bare whisper.

Yuki nods somewhat, and her smile is again pained, worry evident in her dark eyes. “I'll let you know when the firework show is done,” she promises, “Just.. take it easy until then, okay? Take a nap.”

“.. sure, Yuki-nee,” Inaho says, though they both know he will do no such thing; his sleep is irregular already, and trying to take a nap will disrupt his cycle further. He does, however, allow himself to lie down against the tatami mats, the earbud in his ear digging in a little bit further, the music just a slightest bit louder on that side.

She waves a bit before slowly shutting the door, and Inaho feels his heart slip just a bit further into his stomach.

 _'Debilitating',_ he thinks again, and that particular word seems to be more relevant as of late, more applicable, _'To make weak'._ Gazing blankly ahead of him, Inaho silently watches as the fireworks from the outside cast long, abstract shadows against the wall, watches as sparks slowly slip down the wall and disappear amongst the shadows against the floor.

* * *

 

“You are my enemy,” Inaho quietly tells his reflection, and again, his other stands in the mirror immobile, stoic, blank.

Almost a perfect copy.

His reflection is _almost_ a perfect copy of himself, and that in itself should be alarming. The reflection in the mirror has both of their eyes, dark, dark eyes devoid of life and shimmer, and they absolutely refuse to copy Inaho. They refuse to copy his movements, and if Inaho did not know better, he might think that the mirror is no mirror at all and an image, instead. But when Yuki comes in to check on him, occasionally, she will show up in the mirror normally, and his reflection will correct itself. And when she leaves, the mirror's image will shift back to what it was before, and Inaho is left to wonder _why_.

He already knows the reason why.

Bringing up the issue of his reflection has always been something he has no intentions of doing; it will only worry Yuki, and his doctor might be tempted to change his diagnosis. A change in diagnosis may mean a change in how he is currently living – he is almost a functioning member of society, save the fact that he may act out at times – and that would result in a change in how he goes about doing what little work he already does.

_Besides.._

Inaho shifts a bit, lifting his hands to carefully pull off the medical patch over his eye again, and this time, it is a bit less sticky with the pain-relieving medication, just a bit. He remains silent as he pulls off the patch, disposing of it in the garbage, and reaches a hand out to turn on the sink – _keep going, continue marching on, you can do it_ – and listens as the handle squeaks quietly, water falling from the faucet and meeting the sink's basin, slowly filling it with water.

_.. there's.. worse ways to.._

Inaho washes off the creme from his eye, keeping it shut as he does so, and listens to the soap quietly bubble in the water, feels it against his skin. He tries to keep his face maintained, not wanting an infection to spread from anywhere near his eye – _because then, it would be so easy, painfully easy_ – and gently pats the area dry with a small towel, opening his other eye to gaze once again at his silent reflection.

 _.. there are.. worse ways to live,_ he supposes, recalling one arrangement in particular, _Without help.. or care.. or medication.. At least, I have Yuki-nee to support me.._ Brushing his fingertips over his eyelid, Inaho hesitates for a few moments, trying to imagine what he might have been like had he not received immediate medical care and a replacement; he supposes he could have been locked up in a room with no access to medical care or anyone to regularly talk to.

The reflection is silent, still, immobile, and they still refuse to copy his movements, even when Inaho leans in a bit closer to inspect the mirror. “.. you are my enemy,” he repeats, a bit more firm this time, “and I _will_ defeat you.”

 

 

And on that day, perhaps the war will finally end.

**Author's Note:**

> [InaWeek](https://inaweek2017.tumblr.com) is over on Tumblr, and there are a bunch of people participating! Please check out the blog and enjoy artists' pieces, science based explanations, various egg based dishes, and other works fiction!


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